Welcome to Diversity in Language and Literacy Learning & Teaching

SSHRC funded research project 'Youth refugee project'

Welcome to the Western site of a multi-site, multi-phase SSHRC-funded project entitled: Language and Literacy Learning among Youth Refugees in Canadian Classrooms. The PI, Maureen Kendrick, & our co-PI Margaret Early are both at the UBC site, and our other co-PI Saskia Van Viegen is at the York site. I’m, Shelley Taylor, the co-PI at the Western site and the rest of the research team includes PhD students in Western’s Faculty of Education, Bachelor of Education students from here, and some undergraduate volunteers and a postdoctoral student, Dr. Bapujee Biswabandan.

Youth refugees (aged 18-24) experienced limited or interrupted access to formal schooling prior to arrival in countries such as Canada. They may face academic & socioemotional challenges with integration upon arrival. It is important that adequate supports be in place to support their language, literacy & digital development in their postsecondary studies in Canada; however, educators may struggle to identify, understand & meet their various learning needs. The goal of this project is to develop practices & policies to explore youth refugees’ multimodal literacy practices & develop their digital skills to enhance their employment prospects.

For the conceptual framework, we draw on (linguistic) diversity as resource (Lau & Van Viegen, 2020; Taylor & Mohanty, 2021), identity texts (Biswabandan, 2020; Cummins & Early, 2011); literacy ecology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979); funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005); functional integration of languages (Marshall & Moore, 2018); multimodality (Kendrick, 2016; Kress, 2000), and (digital) storytelling (Johnson & Kendrick, 2017).

This is a multi-phase research project:

Phase I involves an educator survey & interview

Phase II involves a youth refugee student survey & interview, &

Phase III involves working one-on-one with youth refugee participants to develop a creative project to suit                    their language, literacy & digital needs as many have experienced interrupted schooling.

We hope to recruit educators and youth refugee from 3-4 postsecondary institutions across Ontario. 

ONLY WORKS OF PARTICIPANTS THAT CONSENTED To DISPLAYING THEIR WORK on this WEBSITE ARE INCLUDED HERE, & PSEUDONYMS WERE USED. Sample projects are also included, as well as 'how to' videos. The digital products are intended to provide a window into the youth refugees' multilingual/multimodal lives. Infographics relating to key literature on related topics are also included in the site, as well as lesson suggestions for teaching dealing with youth refugees at a variety of educational levels.

This research project is supported by SSHRC.

Conference announcement

 AILA WORLD CONGRESS 2021